


these are the times that try men's souls

by canonjohnlock



Series: the summer soldier & the sunshine patriot [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, Bucky processes his feelings, Captain America Sam Wilson, Fix-It, Peter is mourning, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Sam Wilson as Captain America
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 16:50:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18695488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canonjohnlock/pseuds/canonjohnlock
Summary: Bucky is angry, selfishly angry. And he deserves to be.





	these are the times that try men's souls

**Author's Note:**

> Like many others, I'm not satisfied with Steve's ending. It just doesn't feel like something he would do. So this is my way of processing through Bucky.

When Bucky had been twelve years old, Steve got really, really sick. He had seen Steve sick before with pneumonia and even scarlet fever, but that winter was the sickest Bucky had ever seen Steve. His skin wasn’t even pale; it was gray, like he was already dead. Opening his eyes took too much effort and his breath rattled like an empty lunch tin. Bucky sat by his side as much as he could and more. Sarah would have to chase him out and if that didn’t work, Bucky’s mom came over and dragged him out. It got so bad that the priest from their church came down to give Steve last rites. It wasn’t the first time the priest had given them to Steve, but it was the first time Bucky really worried he wouldn’t pull through. Steve was too stubborn to die. But sitting there, listening to each ragged breath and waiting anxiously for the next one, Bucky realized he may lose his best friend. His heart dropped into his stomach and he started hyperventilating, sucking in air but not breathing. Sarah found him sobbing in the room, shaking so violently the floor creaked beneath him. 

Steve pulled through, as he always did, but Bucky would never forget the feeling of preparing to lose his best friend. He could never forget the gaping hole it ripped through his chest and the ensuing panic attack that followed. It was the most emotional pain he had ever been in until he had been captured by HYDRA and realized he may never see Steve again. 

After he found out Steve had taken the serum and was healthy and strong, Bucky thought he might get to grow old beside Steve. He never imagined that Steve would grow old without him. Bucky gets that sucking feeling in his chest again when he turns around and sees Steve on the bench by the water. But he schools his face into one of neutrality and sends Sam over there first. He watches their backs, Steve’s shoulders curled in with age and hands shaking slightly as he hands Sam the shield. And Bucky is angry, selfishly angry. 

He can feel it rolling off him in waves; his arm whirs and clicks as his muscles tighten. He has no right to be angry at Steve going out and living his life. After everything Steve has done and has gone through, he deserves that happiness, that second chance. But Bucky had wanted to be beside him during that second chance. He had wanted to figure out this new century together, find new things to enjoy doing, have someone who  _ understood _ everything he had gone through. And now he had no one.

“Bucky?” Bruce asks, voice soft and far away.

Bucky relaxes his arms, shakes the anger off, and plasters on a fake grin. “He got that life he always wanted.”

Bruce tilts his head to the side, eyes sad and understanding. “Will you?”

Bucky looks at Sam and Steve. “No. I don’t think I will.”

…

He’s lost. Shuri is talking to him about some new upgrades she made to his arm, rambling about cloaking abilities and lighter material so the rods HYDRA put in his back to support his old arm can be taken out, but Bucky isn’t listening. He’s peering blankly out the windows at the deposits of vibranium deep in the earth, the transport trains whizzing by, the stabilizers folding out and up.

At night, he imagines going with Steve to put the Stones back. He could have stayed in the past with Steve and lived a life right alongside him. He could have grown old right beside Steve. They could talk about their lives before the War, and their lives in the twenty-first century. They’d still be the only ones who truly understood each other. It would have been enough. Instead, Bucky is left with that gaping, sucking hole in his chest. It makes it hard to breathe. He can’t get the air in his lungs and he can’t chase the feeling that he is now truly alone for the first time since escaping HYDRA. He shakes like he had when he was twelve and was sure Steve was going to die. He can’t calm down and his heart is racing. He sucks in air but it’s like trying to breathe in a vacuum.

It’s W’Kabi who finds him trembling in his hut. W’Kabi doesn’t say anything, but he sits by the doorway and waits until Bucky stops shaking and can breathe right again. They don’t say anything for a long time, but when the sun starts to rise, W’Kabi says, “I know loss. I can’t imagine what you have gone through, but I know what it’s like to lose people you love unexpectedly.”

“But he’s still here.”

“Yet you feel abandoned.”

Bucky can’t argue with that. He feels like a sick puppy left on the side of a dark backroad, alone, dirty, lost, and scared. “He deserves what he got.”

W’Kabi nods. “I’m sure he does. But that does not mean you shouldn’t feel what you need to.”

“It’s not my right to be angry at him.”

“Who says?”

The sun shines through the doorway of Bucky’s hut, illuminating a square of light on the adjacent wall. “It feels selfish.”

“I think you deserve to be a little selfish.”

Bucky blinks.

“I think you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what he deserves and not what you deserve or want.” W’Kabi stands up and brushes the dirt off himself. “So, what do you want?”

Bucky doesn’t have an answer and W’Kabi doesn’t wait for one.

…

It takes some serious fighting on his part and with the help of a very stubborn and angry Pepper, Bucky is cleared of his war crimes. It doesn’t take nearly as long as Bucky thought it would take, but he chalks it up to people wanting to move on after everything that happened and to Pepper being downright scary when she set her mind to something.

“Thank you,” Bucky says when he finally learns he’s cleared of all charges.

“It’s no problem,” Pepper replies.

Bucky isn’t sure what to say. It’s only been a few months since Tony died and Bucky knows as well as anyone grief takes its time. He stares out at the lake where they had Tony’s funeral. The water ripples with the breeze. “I never got to apologize,” he whispers. “For Howard and Maria.”

“He forgave you,” she says, sounding certain.

“But-”

“Towards the end, he let go of his resentment. I think he was just tired of carrying that weight around. When Morgan was born, he just- he got lighter. It was like he had never known hate when he held her. So he let go of a lot things. He couldn’t change the past, but he could move on.”

Bucky has no way of knowing if what she’s saying is true, but he holds it close and hopes that it is.

…

For lack of anything else to do, Bucky starts joining Sam on missions. It’s nothing big; some scouting and recon, a few rescue missions. They’re staking out a building that’s emitting some serious gamma radiation when Sam asks, “Are you mad at me?”

Bucky pulls his eyes away from his sniper scope he was using to try to see into the building. Sam looks different with blue and white added to his usual Falcon red. He keeps the shield strapped to his back like Steve did, but he still has his wings and guns. Bucky frowns. “Why would I be mad?”

Sam, who’s normally good with feelings and emotions unlike Bucky, hesitates. “Because Steve gave the shield to me.”

Bucky lasts a good two and a half seconds before he starts laughing.

“What?” Sam asks, confused as hell. “What?!”

Bucky laughs harder than he has in a long time, probably since Steve threw up on the Cyclone at Coney Island. Sam stands there indignantly as Bucky gets it out of his system. It takes a few minutes, but he finally calms down enough to wheeze out, “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at Steve.” And there it is, out in open. Bucky sobers immediately and wants to suck the words back into his lungs.

“Because he gave me the shield?”

Bucky wants to cuff Sam upside the head. “No! Aren’t you supposed to be like, emotionally cognizant or something?”

“You’re not easy to read,” he huffs, crossing his arms.

Bucky allows that and peers through his scope again. There’s still no movement in the building, but the Geiger counter is still reading high gamma emissions. He frowns. “Is there anybody in the building?”

“I sent Redwing to do a scan when he got here. There was no one.”

Bucky taps the Geiger counter. The readings aren’t high enough to kill anyone, but the building isn’t cleared for radiation experiments nor does it have the proper failsafes if something does go wrong with the experimentation. Bucky is about to ask Sam to do another scan when an explosion rocks the building and blows a hole through the wall. A wave of heat blows Bucky back. His head hits the roof with a thud and his vision goes blurry.

“Bucky!” Sam yells.

He coughs and waves his arms. “I’m fine, just hit my head,” he wheezes, sitting up slowly as his head spins. “Did you see anyone go in?”

“No, the building was still empty.” Bucky hears a whir as Sam extends his wings. “I’m gonna go check it out. Stay here and make sure no one goes in or out.”

Bucky crawls back to the ledge and grabs his scope that was knocked aside. He trains it on the building and watches. A few people from neighboring buildings have poked their heads out to see what happened, but most of them stay inside. Bucky fires some warning shots to herd the rest back to safety.

“Did you see someone?” Sam asks over the comms.

“No, warning shots to get bystanders back inside. Whatcha got in there?”

Sam grunts. “No much, just a lot of rubble, mostly metal. Whatever or whoever was in here is gone now.”

“See if there’s anything that survived that, a computer or notebook or something.”

“I’m looking.”

Bucky keeps his eyes on the ground and waits until Sam gives him the all clear. He stands up and watches Sam fly over from the building and land gracefully next to Bucky. “This notebook is mostly intact, but I can’t parse through the science jargon.”

“Lemme see.” Bucky thumbs through the notebook. “I know atoms,” he says, pointing to a crudely drawn picture of one.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Me too, Einstein. You ain’t special.”

“Bruce could help,” Bucky says, handing the notebook back.

“I’ll get it to him.” Sam tucks the notebook into his pants. “Don’t think our conversation is over.”

“What conversation?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

He looks away at the smoldering wreckage of the building. “Better get Agent Hill on clean up.”

“Bucky.”

“What, you wanna talk now?” He faces Sam head on, jutting his chin out.

“Yes, actually.”

“You have spectacular timing, Wilson,” he hisses.

“Do you want the shield? Because you can have it! God knows it’s never gonna feel like mine.”

“I don’t want the damn shield! I don’t give a rat’s ass about the shield!”

“Then what’s got you all twisted up?”

“Steve left me!” he shouts.

Sam is quiet.

“He left me,” Bucky says softly. “He went and got his happy ending and I got… whatever this shit show is.” He can feel blood trickling down his neck from his head. “I wasn’t Steve’s happy ending. I just thought, after everything that happened, he’d be here with me while I healed. I knew he wasn’t coming back when he went to return those Stones. I knew it. But I didn’t stop him. I didn’t say what I should have.”

“What would you have said?”

Bucky clenches and unclenches his metal fist, listening to the whir of the gears. “Not yet. It’s not the end of the line yet. Don’t leave me.” He blinks away the stupid tears. “I was there whenever he was sick. I had his back whenever he got into fights. I figured he’d have mine while I got better.”

“He still has your back, Bucky. He still cares.”

Bucky shakes his head. “It’s not the same. He got old without me. I wasn’t at his wedding. I wasn’t there while he lived his life and he’s not gonna be here as I live mine. Or what’s left of it. I still don’t know jackshit about this century. I found out what a Starbucks was two weeks ago!”

Sam frowns. “He was a man out of time, and now you are.”

“I’m alone again, like I was in that POW camp with HYDRA.”

“You’ve got me, if you’ll have me.” He steps closer. “I know I’m not Steve. I never will be Steve. But I helped Steve when he was adjusting and I can help you.”

“It’s not your responsibility. It’s not Steve’s either so I don’t have any right to be mad at-”

“You’re right. It’s not my responsibility. But I want to help. And you deserve to feel what you’re feeling.”

“I don’t deserve anything!”

“And who told you that?” Sam lets that sink in and then says, “Come on. Let’s get the notebook to Bruce.”

…

Bucky rents an apartment in Brooklyn. It only feels right. It’s a one bedroom apartment in Sunset Park with peeling paint and a sketchy looking fire escape, but Bucky makes it his own. Since escaping HYDRA and regaining some of his memories, he’s found some things he loves about the twenty-first century: blu-ray DVDs for instance. He loves sci-fi movies and once he realized he could buy his favorite movie for ten dollars and watch it whenever he wanted, he felt pure joy. It took some digging to find a copy of  _ Loss of Sensation _ but he found one eventually. He called Sam to help him set up his DVD player and settled in to watch the movie.

He buys a Roomba, too. He sits on the couch he got from Goodwill and curls up under the cashmere blankets that just barely cover his legs and watches the little robot whir around his apartment. He buys a goldfish, too, and puts it in a bowl that he sets on his round kitchen table. He names the fish Marcus and Sam makes fun of him for that. He discovers he’s actually good at cooking and starts buying fresh ingredients from a farmer’s market and makes food for his elderly neighbors. The ninety year old woman next door, Penelope, bakes him cookies in return and invites him inside to eat with her. She tells him about her late husband, Patrick, and Bucky talks about his goldfish.

Sam calls it healing. Bucky calls it making do with what he has.

…

Bucky is entertaining a dumb idea when Sam calls him. “Bruce figured out the notebook. How soon can you get to the compound?”

Bucky gets to the compound in an hour and finds Bruce bent over the notebook and the spider kid bouncing off the walls. “He had a five hour energy,” Sam explains as Bucky watches the kid dart around the room.

“So the notebook was encoded,” Bruce explains, taking his glasses off.

“You’re not gonna believe what they’re working on!” Spider Kid shouts.

Bucky has never formally met the Spider Kid, but he knows he was sort of like Tony’s understudy. He watches Peter bounce around the lab and wonders how he’s doing.

“How familiar are you with nuclear fission?” Bruce says.

“Nuclear what now?”

Bruce flips an honest to god whiteboard over and points at a diagram. “So if you take a neutron, which is equal in weight to a proton but has no charge, and slam it into a big atom, you get an even bigger atom, but only for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second.”

“So what’s the point?” Sam says.

“Well, the bigger atom is unstable so it decays and splits into two smaller atoms. When it splits, some energy is released in the form of radiation. Usually, it’s alpha or beta radiation. Very rarely you can get gamma radiation.”

“So they were just smashing shit together in that building?” Bucky asks.

“ _ Important _ shit. Have you heard of antimatter?” Bruce continues.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky mutters and takes a seat on a stool.

“For every particle, there’s a perfect opposite. In the case of the building you guys were staking out, they had positrons and electrons and were attempting to smash them together.”

“What happens when they hit?” Sam says.

“Annihilation!” Peter exclaims.

“That’s not reassuring,” mumbles Bucky.

“Both particles are destroyed and a lot of energy is released, usually in the form of gamma radiation. Now, if colliding only one electron and one positron made an explosion that big, imagine what colliding a bunch of them can do.”

Sam and Bucky shared an ‘oh shit’ look.

“There’s only one issue-”

Peter interrupts, “It’s very hard to store antimatter because as soon as it touches any bit of matter, BOOM!”

“Exactly.”

“So, are they developing a way to store this antimatter?”

“They already have. In computer simulations, it’s worked. But we don’t know what they’re going to do with the antimatter or how they’re going to procure it. It’s very rare on our side of the universe.”

“Now what?” Bucky asks.

Bruce shrugs. “We wait. We don’t know who’s behind it or where they’re getting the antimatter or what they plan to do with it.”

“This isn’t very reassuring.”

Sam sighs. “Okay, so we just keep our eyes open for any gamma radiation or antimatter.”

Bucky runs his fingers through his hair. “I don’t like it.”

“Me either,” Sam says. “But if we don’t know where they are or who they are that’s doing this, there’s nothing we can do.”

“I wish Natasha were here,” Bruce says. His body may take up a lot of space in the lab, but his words fill the crevices in a way nothing else could. “She could find anyone with just scraps of information.”

Peter stills for a moment, but Bucky can still feel the energy coming off him. It’s the nervous energy of someone who hasn’t slept in a long time. Sam takes deliberately even breaths and Bucky does nothing. He’d stumbled upon Clint talking about Vomir to Nebula. Despite having a wife and kids, he kept saying, “It shoulda been me. She should still be here, not me.”

And Bucky knows guilt like that like the back of his hand. Howard and Maria Stark could have still been here, albeit old and frail, but alive. Countless other people could have been alive if Bucky hadn’t mowed them down like fish in a barrel.

Bucky offers to take Peter back to Queens. They share an Uber and sit silently in the back. Twenty minutes into the ride, Bucky asks, “How you doing?”

Peter, who’s energy high faded at the mention of Natasha, shrugs. “My parents died when I was a kid. I don’t really remember them, so it doesn’t hurt so bad. My uncle Ben died when I was fifteen, right before I got my powers. That hurt a lot more. He was like my dad. And Mr. Stark… Tony… He saved my life, you know, before I was even Spiderman.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Aunt May and Uncle Ben took me to the Stark Expo. I was so excited. I’d always loved Iron Man. I mean, he was a hero! But then those drones came and I lost Aunt May and Uncle Ben and there was one that landed right in front of me. I remember thinking, Iron Man can do it, so can I. So I didn’t run and I lifted my hand to shoot this guy with the stupid toy Uncle Ben had bought me and it  _ worked _ . The drone exploded. And then Iron Man said, ‘Nice work, kid,’ and flew away. It was like saving my life was an afterthought. I never thought I’d get to know Tony the way I did. And I’m grateful for everything he did, but sometimes…” He trails off.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Bucky says. “You keep thinking, if I had never met him.”

“No,” Peter says, shaking his head violently. “No, not that. It’s like, I shouldn’t have let myself get so close. We are- We were both in the hero business. I knew one day one of us would meet our end. I just- I never thought-” He breaks off, choking on a sob.

“It’s okay, kid. Let it out,” Bucky says, opening up his arms because he can’t  _ not _ comfort the kid. Peter collapses in his arms and cries, his body shaking. Bucky feels himself start to shake too, and he holds Peter tighter. If they had just left well-enough alone… Bucky didn’t even know five years had passed. They could have left them wherever they had gone and Peter wouldn’t be feeling this pain, Bucky wouldn’t be angry, and Tony would still be here. But that’s just passing the grief onto others. They have what they have when they have it.

When Bucky gets home late that night, there’s a package waiting for him. He tears into it and finds a picture of him and Steve during the War. The frame is a dark oak six by ten and the photo is aged, sepia in color. They’re laughing at something behind the camera. Bucky’s eyes are crinkled at the corners and Steve’s head is thrown back, hand coming to slap Bucky in the chest like he does when he’s laughing too hard.

W’Kabi had asked what Bucky had wanted. Bucky wants to rest. He doesn’t want to fight anymore. He’s been fighting since he was eight and he first found those kids beating Steve to a pulp in the schoolyard. He’s fought as Bucky Barnes, as Sergeant Barnes, the Winter Soldier, the White Wolf. “I don’t want to be a weapon anymore,” he tells Marcus. Marcus swims around in his fishbowl. He stares down at the picture frame. “I don’t want to be a weapon anymore.”

…

Bucky adopts a kitten on accident. He was content with Marcus. Even bought him a pineapple to go in his tank which Peter thought was hilarious for some reason. But Bucky is walking back from the farmer’s market with apples for Penelope when he hears soft whimpering from the alley. If he wasn’t enhanced he wouldn’t have heard it which is probably why no one else stopped. He stands outside the alley and cocks his head to the side, listening. He hears the whimpers again and goes to investigate. He finds her in a moldy cardboard box. She has matted white fur and two different colored eyes: blue and green. She’s trembling and mewls louder when Bucky reaches down to pick her up. She’s shaking like a leaf and digs her tiny nails into Bucky’s flesh arm. He scratches under her chin and she closes her eyes and purrs.

The vet tells him she hasn’t been weaned and the odds of her surviving are slim, but Bucky has heard that before so he sets his jaw and asks how to take care of her. He feeds her from a bottle and keeps her curled under his arm while they sleep. He trains her to the best of his ability to use a litter box and to not pee on his pillow anymore,  _ goddamnit _ . And she grows. She starts walking around the apartment on her own and swats at the Roomba as it rolls by, cleaning up litter she had kicked from her box. She starts making swipes at Marcus so Bucky has to put a book over his bowl. Once the vet confirms the kitten will live, Bucky buys her a black color with a bell and a name tag that says  _ Stephanie _ . It feels right.

…

“Domestic,” Sam says when he stops by the apartment. Bucky has a lasagna in the oven to share with Penelope later. Stephanie is lounging across his lap as he scratches her tummy. Marcus is swimming circles in his tank. 

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” Bucky tells him.

“Are we fighting?” Sam asks.

“That’s not what I mean.”

Sam sits down on the couch next to him. “I know what you mean.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Man, no. You don’t gotta apologize. You’ve done enough fighting for fifty lifetimes.”

“I’ll finish the antimatter mission with you, but we should use Peter as back up. He understands it more than we do. And he’s good and needs a distraction.”

Sam pets Stephanie, causing her to purr. “I’m happy for you, Buck.”

“I wish I could feel the same.”

…

Bucky squints at the computer screen while Peter loses it to a fit of giggles. “Birth year invalid? That’s the year I was born!”

“That would make you 106,” Peter wheezes.

“I am 106!” Bucky protests, startling Stephanie from her doze.

“The site thinks you’re a troll,” he explains. “How old are you actually? Like biologically?”

He counts on his fingers. “Uh, thirty, I think?”

“So put 1993 as your birth year.”

Bucky frowns but types that in and the annoying red exclamation mark goes away.

“Congrats. You’re a nineties kid.”

“Is that a good thing?” Bucky asks. “Are you a nineties kid?”

“No. Where did you get your high school diploma?” Peter asks, taking the laptop from Bucky when it takes him too long to figure out how to scroll down.

“Thomas Jefferson High School.”

Peter frowns. “That closed in 2007 and since we’re saying you were born in 1993, you would have graduated in 2011.” He scratches his nose. “You might have to go in and explain your situation.”

Bucky throws his head back and groans. “That’s so much work! I don’t want to get denied face to face.”

“I’ll go with you,” Peter suggests.

“You would?”

“Yeah! I mean, you’d do the same for me, right?”

Bucky realizes he would. Peter’s a good kid and Bucky feels protective of him. Not the same way he felt about Steve because he knows Peter could win in a fight and not just keep getting up only to get punched again. He feels protective of Peter in the same way he felt protective of his sisters. He smiles at Peter, a genuine smile, and says, “I would, yeah.”

…

Bucky pants, trying to get away, but they keep closing in on him. He takes a sharp turn down one hallway and skids into the wall. He ricochets off and keeps going, muscles protesting in ways they haven’t for years. He turns left and hits a dead end. He goes to double back and runs face first into a HYDRA agent. He shoves his Mark II into the side of their neck and tumbles backwards. More HYDRA agents follow him. He’s backed into a corner, breathing sharply and eyes darting over each agent. Pierce steps forward from the group. “Wipe him.”

Bucky wakes up screaming. His apartment is dark and his blankets are bunched up around his ankles. Stephanie is watching him with wide eyes from the desk across from his bed. The room feels too small, so he launches himself out the window and onto the fire escape. He tears down the stairs and runs out into the street. His bare feet slap on the ground, rocks and trash ripping into his skin, but he doesn’t stop, not until he’s standing in front of what used to be his and Steve’s apartment before the War. He can’t remember what the place looked like, but somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind he must have remembered where it was. Where Steve and Bucky’s apartment used to be is a kabob shop that closed down two months ago due to health code violations and Bucky stands in front of it panting in some sweats and no shirt.

Bucky feels another sob climb it’s way up his throat. He screams in anguish, angry at  _ everything _ . He’s angry at the War that ended nearly eighty years ago. He’s angry at HYDRA for taking him and experimenting on him and  _ using _ him. He’s angry at Steve, for bringing him back to himself and then fucking off to 1945 and leaving Bucky behind. He’s angry at Tony for leaving Peter and Pepper and Morgan behind. He’s angry at Natasha for sacrificing herself and angry at Clint for letting her. He’s angry at Thanos for fucking up the world. He’s angry at Thor for leaving Earth and he’s angry at Sam for moving on. He’s angry at goddamn Dr. Erskine for choosing Steve to be the super soldier. He’s angry at Howard Stark for helping develop the serum. He’s angry at Scott for giving Steve and Natasha the idea of time travel. He’s angry at Bruce for entertaining the idea. He picks up a rock and throws it through the storefront window. He’s angry at developers for turning his old apartment into a shitty kabob place.

Bucky is angry at himself. He screams again, primal rage bubbling up and ripping shreds through his throat. He follows the rock through the window and starts punching everything in sight. His fists go through rotten wooden tables and brick walls and glass display cases. He throws termite-bitten chairs across the shop. When he steps on a rusty nail, he doesn’t even feel it. He trashes the place in a matter of minutes and then stands heaving in the wreckage. His fist is bleeding and sweat is making his hair stick to his forehead. He curls in on himself and cries. He cries until he can’t breathe. His chest is gaping again and a vacuum opens where his lungs used to be. He throws up bile, sputtering with lack of breath. That’s where the cops find him, hunched over a puddle of sick and having a panic attack.

Bucky manages to convince the cops to just take him back to his apartment. “I’m really sorry about the shop,” he says hoarsely in the back if the car.

The cop who isn’t driving, Officer Kelly, turns to look at him. “It’s being demolished next month anyway.”

“What?” Bucky asks.

“It’s being torn down.”

“Why?”

“It’s been here since 1900 and it’s not in the best condition. These things happen.”

“I used to live there,” Bucky mumbles.

Officer Kelly frowns. “That building hasn’t been a residential building since the fifties.”

“I lived there in the late twenties and early thirties with my best friend.” Bucky stares out at the dark street. “I’m going to throw up again. Can we pull over?”

The officers drop him back off at his apartment. He waves to them as they pull away and then trudges up the stairs. Stephanie greets him at the door, rubbing her body over his legs. “Hey, sweet girl,” he says, picking her up and holding her to his chest. “Sorry I ran off like that. Nightmares, you know?”

Stephanie purrs. He sets her back down and goes to the bathroom, pulling his sweaty pants off and turning on the shower. He washes the blood and sweat off his body and wraps his foot in gauze when he gets out. His body will fight off any infection, so he doesn't bother with getting a tetanus shot. He stares at his limp hair in the mirror.

Bucky cuts his hair carefully and deliberately, dropping the hair in the sink. He shears it short on the sides and back like he’s seen other men do and keeps it long on top. He shaves his beard, but doesn’t use a straight razor so he has stubble left. He has bags under his eyes and his lips are chapped. He drops his gaze to the sink and starts cleaning the hair out. When he’s finished, he shuts off the light and climbs into bed. He cries himself to sleep.

…

He gets a call from Bruce on a Saturday morning. “We got a hit on some gamma radiation. I’ll send you the address. Sam’s already on the way. I’m having FRIDAY alert Peter.”

Bucky looks across the table at Penelope. “Duty calls,” he tells her. He brushes a kiss over her cheek as he gets up to leave and still washes his plate and puts it away.

“Be safe, dear. I don’t want to miss out on our Sunday dinner.”

Bucky smiles. “I would never stand you up, Pen.”

“Good.”

Bucky goes home to change into his tactical gear and then gets an Uber to the location Bruce sent him. His Uber driver stares at him weird the whole way, but doesn’t say a word, so Bucky tips him an extra five bucks. He finds Sam and Peter on a building across from a warehouse just outside Bushwick. Sam hands him a comm and he slips it in his ear. “What’s the deal?”

“Karen identified two scientists in the building,” Peter says, crouching on the edge of the roof. “Doctors Ryan Burns and Jacqueline Grace. They’re nuclear physicists. Nice haircut.”

“Karen? And thanks.”

“His AI,” Sam says, rolling his eyes.

“What’s their deal? The doctors?”

Sam shrugs. “We don’t know.”

Bucky levels his sniper over the side of the building and looks through the scope.

“Whoa! Let’s not just shoot them!” Peter protests.

“He’s just using the scope to get a better look,” Sam explains.

“Oh.”

Bucky watches as one of the five scientists in the room taps furiously on her computer. Another tightens something in the large metal tube forming a circle in the middle of the warehouse. “Can we get Redwing in there for some audio?” Bucky asks.

Sam sends the drone into the warehouse and soon audio starts filtering through their comms.

“We need to put all the positrons in there,” says one woman, “otherwise the chances of them colliding are small.”

“We can’t waste all of them! What if this doesn’t work?” a man says.

“It will work, Ryan,” the woman says. “It has to.”

Another woman butts in. “The diameter is too small. We can’t get the particles going at a fast enough speed.”

The man, Ryan, growls, “Give it more power!”

“We can’t-”

“Do it!”

Peter leans forward. “Karen’s already reading a very high power output already, if they crank up the kilowatts any more it’ll explode.”

“Sam,” Bucky says, “what do we do?”

“Ah, shit, I hate being in charge.” He grabs the back of Bucky’s collar. “Come on, kid, we’re going in.”

The three of them crash through one of the windows, Bucky rolling to his feet and training two of his guns on two scientists. “Don’t move!”

Peter goes for what looks like the generator and webs up the scientist there. He flips the switches and the hum from the machine dies down. Sam has his guns trained on the two people who appear to be in charge. The scientists who aren’t webbed up hold their hands up.

“Shit,” says the one at the generator.

“What’re you guys doing with antimatter?” Peter asks, peering at the laptop near the generator.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Ryan, the only male scientist in the room, snaps.

“Actually, he understands it better than we do,” Sam corrects.

Bucky, keeping his guns trained on the two scientists in front of him, repeats, “So, what’re you doing with the antimatter?”

Ryan bares his teeth.

“They’re trying to build a bomb,” Peter says, fingers moving across the keyboard. “A big one. Antihydrogen? That can’t be stabilized.”

“But it can!” the scientist who must be Jacqueline says. “By using the electromagnetic gamma radiation from vibranium decay, we were able to create a suspended vacuum in which the antimatter could be held, not touching any other matter. That is until we stabilize the vibranium and then…”

“Boom,” Peter says, sticking a flash drive into the computer and starting a file dump.  

“Boom,” Jacqueline copies.

“Spidey, web them up, my arms are getting tired,” Sam says. Peter secures the scientist at the generator and then wraps up Jacqueline, Ryan, and the other two. Bucky slides his guns back into their holsters but keeps his guard up.

“How powerful would the bomb be?” Bucky asks.

“Just a single antihydrogen colliding with hydrogen could level a whole city block,” Peter says.

“What do you even need a bomb for?”

“We lost everything,” Ryan hisses.

“After Thanos?” Sam says. “A lot of people did. We brought everyone back.”

“We were… dusted,” Jacqueline explains. “All of us in this room. Our research into antimatter was pawned off to another group. They won a Nobel Prize from expanding on our work.”

“So you want revenge?” Peter frowns. “You could get a Nobel just for stabilizing antihydrogen! We’ve been trying to do that since the nineties.”

“Our daughter,” Ryan says, gesturing to Jacqueline, “she survived Thanos.”

“But she- she killed herself. She was sixteen,” she whispers.

“You lost someone you loved,” Bucky says, “that doesn’t mean you have to inflict the same pain on others.”

“Everyone else got their loved ones back!” Ryan roars, pulling at the webs around his arms.

“No,” Bucky snarls through gritted teeth. “Not everyone did. And even if they did, that doesn’t give you the  _ right _ to tear people apart like this!”

“Bucky,” Sam warns.

“You’re right,” he says. “They’re not worth it. Call Bruce and Fury. I’m going home.”

…

Bucky feels like a kid again. He shifts his weight from one foot to another. “I can’t do this,” he says.

“Stop that,” Sam says, grabbing him before he can walk away. “You can.”

Peter nods. “Yeah! You’ve been through way worse things than this!”

“I’d rather be a POW again than do this.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” Sam hedges. “It’s just college orientation.”

“You got in like everyone else,” Peter adds. “You deserve to be here.”

“I deserve to be here,” he repeats. “I deserve to be here.”

“Exactly. Now go on.” Sam nudges him forward.

“Welcome to Kingsborough Community College! I’m Megan, one of the guides for today,” says the sweet girl Bucky stumbles upon, glancing back at Sam and Peter. “What’s your degree going to be in?”

Bucky swallows. “Biotechnology.”

“So cool!” Megan says. “Follow me and I’ll get you set up to meet with an advisor.”

Bucky nods. “Okay.” He looks back at Sam and Peter one more time. They each give him an encouraging thumbs up. “Okay,” he breathes, and follows Megan into the throng.

…

The house is made of red brick and has a picket fence. There’s a porch swing and flowers growing under the front windows. A little American flag is stuck in the dirt. Kids’ toys litter the lawn. The gate swings open with a quiet creak and Bucky walks up the path to the oak door. He rings the bell once and waits.

Steve takes his time getting to the door, but when he opens it, he smiles the same bright smile he’s had since childhood. “Buck!” he says. “Hi!” His skin crinkles by his eyes. He has age marks dotting his face and Bucky can see his veins through his papery skin. Nonetheless, he looks strong for his age.

“Hi, Steve,” Bucky replies.

“Come in. How’ve you-”

“Stop. I’m angry at you.”

Steve’s mouth snaps shut.

“I know why you stayed in the past and I know as well as anyone you deserved that break, but it was  _ selfish _ . You don’t think we all deserve a break? I think I more than deserved to finally live a peaceful life with my best friend by my side.” Bucky takes a deep breath. “So I understand why you stayed, but that doesn’t make me any less angry.”

“I’m-”

“Let me say my piece. I prepared the whole way here; let me finish. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want and what I deserve. I want to live my life. I want to be Bucky Barnes, not the Winter Soldier or the White Wolf. Moreover, I  _ deserve _ that. I deserved to have my best friend figuring it all out with me by their side. I deserved to live a life beside you, Steve, and you took that away.” He pushes his hair off his forehead and bites the inside of his cheek. “You were selfish, but you deserved to be. Now I deserve to be mad. I’m mad at you and I will probably continue being mad at you for a while. But I miss talking to my best friend, even if he is an old piece of shit now. So you’re not forgiven, but I’m trying to get better.”

Steve grins. “I’m glad you came, Buck.”

Bucky offers up a small smile. He’s a long way from the scared kid taking vigil at his sick best friend’s bedside. They both are. But these are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will shrink from the service of their country because they fucking deserve it. “You wanna tell me about this life you lived?”

**Author's Note:**

> As of May 12, 2019, I am working on a multi-chaptered sequel to this fic. I cannot tell you when the first chapter will be posted. 
> 
> The science may not make sense as I have very loose knowledge of nuclear fission and antimatter but give me the benefit of the doubt.


End file.
